New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture

PART ONE—Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States of America

13. How the Displacement of Small-Scale by Large-Scale
      Production in Agriculture is Minimised

Theobjection may be raised that if the displacement of
      small-scaleproduction“also” proceeds in the form of
      the intensification (and “capitalization”) of operations on the
      smaller-sizefarms, is the grouping by acreage of any
      use at all? Is this not a case of two contradictory tendencies
      which make any general conclusion impossible?

Thisobjection can be met by acompletepicture of
      American agriculture and its evolution; to meet it we must try
      to compare all three methods of grouping which present, as it
      were, the maximum of information social statistics has produced
      in the sphere of agriculture in recent years.

Sucha comparison
      is possible. All it calls for is a table which may at first
      sight appear to be so abstract and complex that it may “scare”
      the reader away. However, it takes only a little bit of
      concentration to “read”, understand and analyzes the table.

Tocompare the three different groupings we need take only theirpercentage ratios. All the necessary calculations are
      given in the American Census report for 1900. Each grouping is
      tabulated underthreemain heads. By acreage we have:
      (1) small farms (under 100 acres), (2) medium (100 to 175
      acres), and (3) large (175 and over). By value of product we
      have: (1) non-capitalist farms (under $500), (2) medium($500
      to 1.000), and (3) capitalist ($1,000 and over). By the
      principal source of income we take (1) slightly capitalist
      (livestock, cotton), (2) medium (hay and grain; and
      miscellaneous), and (3) highly capitalist (the special
      “commercial” crops listed above, in Chapter 12, under heads 5 to
      14).

Forevery group we first take the percentage of farms, i.e., the
      number of farms in a given group expressed as a percentage ratio
      of the total number of farms in the U.S.A. We then take the
      percentage of all land, i.e., the total acreage in a given group
      expressed as a percentage ratio of the total acreage of all
      farms in the U.S.A. The acreage serves as an indicator of the
      extensive character of the enterprise (unfortunately, the only
      figures available are fortotalacreage, instead of the
      improved acreage only, which would have been more exact). If the
      percentage share of the total acreage ishigherthan
      the percentage share of the number of farms, for example, if
      17.2% of the farms have 43.1% of the land, it is evident that we
      are dealing with large farms, larger-than-average farms, which
      are besides more than double the size of the average farm. The
      reverse is true if the percentage of land islowerthan
      the percentage of farms.

Nextcome the indexes ofintensivenessof agriculture:
      the value of implements and machinery, and the total expenditure
      on fertilizers. Here, too, we take the value and the expenditure
      in the given group expressed as a percentage share of the totals
      for the country as a whole. Here again, if the percentage ishigherthan the percentage ofland, the
      conclusion is that intensiveness isabovethe average,
      etc.

Finally,in order to determine exactly the capitalist character
      of the enterprises, the same method is applied to the total
      expenditure on hired labour; while in order to determine the
      scale of production this is done in relation to the total value
      of the agricultural product for the entire country.

Thishas produced the following table, which I shall now proceed
      to explain and analyze:

Letus consider the first grouping—according to the
      principal source of income. Here farms are grouped, so to say,
      according to their line of farming, which is to some extent
      similar to the grouping of industrial enterprises by branches of
      industry. But the picture is immensely more complex in
      agriculture.

Thefirst column shows the group of slightly capitalist
      farms. It comprises almost one-half the total number of
      farms—46%. They own 52.9% of the total a acreage, i.e.,
      they are larger than average (this group includes both the very
      large, extensive, livestock farms and the smaller-than-average
      cotton farms). Their shares of the value of machinery (37.2%)
      and the expenditure on fertilizers (36.5%) are lower than their
      acreage percentages, which means that their intensiveness is
      lower than the average. The same thing is true of the capitalist
      character of the enterprise (35.2%) and the value of the product
      (45%). Hence, their productivity of labour is lower than the
      average.

Thesecond column shows the medium farms. Because farms which
      are “medium” ineveryrespect fall into the medium
      group byallthree methods of grouping, we find here
      thatalltheir percentage ratios are closer to each
      other than in any of the other groups. The fluctuations are
      relatively small.

Thethird column shows the highly capitalist farms. I gave above
      a detailed analysis of what the figures in this column mean. Be
      it noted thatonlyfor this type of farm do we have
      accurate and comparable data both for 1900 and 1910—data
      testifying that these highly capitalist crops have a faster
      than-average rate of development.

Inwhat way is this more rapid development evident in the
      ordinary classification in use in most countries? This is shown
      in the next column: the small farms grouped by acreage.

Thisgroup consists of a great number of farms (57.5 por cent of
      the total). Its acreage is only 17.5% of the total, i.e., less
      than one-third of the average. Hence, this is the “poorest”
      group, the most “land-starved” group. But then we and that it
      has a higher-than-average intensiveness of agriculture (the
      value of machinery and expenditures forfertilizers); that it is
      more capitalist (expenditures for hired labour); and that it has
      ahigher-than-average-productivity of labour (value of
      product): 22.3 to 41.9% with 17.5% of the acreage.

Whatis the explanation? Obviously that an especially large
      number ofhighly capitalistfarms—see the
      preceding vertical column—fall into this “small”-acreage
      group. Aminorityof rich, capital-owning farmers
      conducting large scale capitalist operations on small tracts of
      land are added to a majority of really small farmers who have
      little land and little capital. Such farmers make up only 12.5%
      ( = the percentage of highly capitalist farms) of the total in
      America, which means that even if they were all to be put into
      this one group of small-acreage farms, 45% of the farmers in
      that group (57.5—12.5) would still be short of land and
      capital. Actually, of course, a part of the highly capitalist
      farms, even if only a small one, consists of medium and
      large-acreage farms, so that the figure of 45% in factunderstatesthe actual number of farmers who have
      little land and no capital.

Itwill be easily seen how the condition of these 45%—a
      minimum of 45%—of the farmers who are poor in land and
      capital isembellishedby the inclusion into the same
      group of some 12,10 or so per cent of farmers who are supplied
      with higher-than-average amounts of capital, machinery, money to
      buy fertilizers, hire labour, and the rest of it.

Ishall not dwell separately on the medium and large farms of
      this grouping, for this would be to repeat, in slightly
      different words what has been said about the small farms. For
      instance, if the data on the small-acreage farms put a better
      complexion on the oppressed condition of small-scaleproduction, the data on the large-acreage farms
      obviouslyminimizethe actualconcentrationof
      agriculture by large-scale production. We shall presently see an
      exact statistical expression of this minimized concentration.

Wethus arrive at the following general proposition which may be
      formulated as a law applicable to the grouping of farms by
      acreage in any capitalist country:

Thebroader and more rapid the intensification of agriculture,
      the more the classification by acreage serves togivea rosy pictureof the oppressed condition of
      small-scale production in agriculture, the condition of the
      small farmer who is short ofbothlandandcapital; the more it serves tobluntthe real sharpness
      of the class contradiction between the prospering large-scale
      producer and the small-scale producer going to the wall; the
      more it serves tominimizethe concentration of capital
      in the hands of big operators and the displacement of the
      small.

Thisis graphically confirmed by the third, and last,
      classification, according to the value of product. The
      percentage of non-capitalistic farms (or not very profitable
      farms in terms of gross income) is 58.8%, i.e., even somewhat
      more than the “small” farms (57.5%). They have muchmoreland than the group of “small” farmers (33.3% as
      against 17.5%). But their share of the total value of the
      product isone-third smaller: 22.1% as against 33.5%!

Whatis the explanation? It is that this group does not include
      the highly capitalistic farms on small tracts which haveartificially and falselyinflated the small farmers’
      share of the capital in the form of machinery, fertilizers,
      etc.

Thus,the oppression and dispossession—and hence the
      ruin—of the smallproducerin agriculture turn out
      to bemuch more advancedthan one would suppose from
      the data on smallfarms.

Thereturns for the small and large farms, grouped by acreage,
      take no account ofthe role of capital, and the failure
      to reckon with this “trifle” in capitalist enterprise distorts
      the condition of the small producer, puts a false colour on it,
      for it “could be” tolerable “but for” the existence of capital,
      i.e., the power of money, and the relationship between the hired
      labourer and the capitalist, between the farmer and the merchant
      and creditor, etc.

Forthat reason the concentration of agriculture as shown by the
      large farms is much lower than its concentration as shown by
      large-scale,i.e., capitalist, production:
      39.2% of the value of the product (slightly more than double the
      average) is concentrated on 17.7% of “large” farms, while 52.3%
      of the total value of the product, i.e., more thanthreetimes the average, is concentrated on 17.2%capitalistfarms.

Inthe country which practices the free distribution of vast
      tracts of unoccupied land, and which the
Manilovs[1]consider a
      country of “family” farms,more than one-halfof the
      total agricultural production is concentrated in about one-sixth
      of thecapitalistenterprises, whose expenditure on
      hired labour is four times greater than the per-farm average
      (69.1% on 17.2% of the total number of farms), and are half as
      great again as the per-acre average (69.1% of the expenditure on
      hired labour on farms owning 43.1% of the total amount of
      land).

Atthe other pole, more than one-half, almost three-fifths, of
      the total number of farms (58.8%) are non-capitalist. They have
      one-third of the land (33.3%) but on it they have less than the
      average quantity of machinery (25.3% of the value of machinery);
      they use less fertilizers than the average (29.1% of the
      expenditures for fertilizers) and so its productivity is onlytwo-thirds of the average. With one-third of the total
      acreage, this immense number of-farms, which suffer the greatest
      oppression under the yoke of capital, produce less than
      one-quarter (22.1%) of the total product and of its total
      value.

Consequently,we arrive at a general conclusion concerning the
      significance of classification by acreage, namely, that it is
      not entirely useless. The one thing that should never be
      forgotten is that it understates the displacement of small-scale
      by large-scale production, and that the understatement increases
      with the pace and scope of intensification of agriculture, and
      with the gap between the amounts of capital invested by the
      farms per unit of land. With modern methods of research, which
      produce an abundance of sound information about each farm, it
      would, for instance, be sufficient to combine two methods of
      classification—say, each of the five acreage groups could
      bo broken down into two or three subgroups according to the
      employment of hired labour. If this is not done it is largely
      because of the fear of giving a much too naked picture of
      reality, a much too striking picture of the oppression,
      impoverishment, ruin, expropriation of the mass of small
      farmers, whose condition is so “conveniently” and “unnoticeably”
      made to look better by the “model” capitalist enterprises, which
      are also “small” in acreage and which are a small minority
      within the mass ofthe dispossessed. From the scientific
      standpoint no one would dare deny that not only land, but also
      capital has a part to play in modern agriculture. From the
      standpoint of statistical techniques, or the amount of
      statistical work involved, a total number of 10 to 15 groups is
      not at all excessive in com parison, for instance, with the 18
      plus 7 groups based on acreage given in the German statistical
      report of 1907. This report, which classifies an abundance of
      material about 5,736,082 farms into the above number of acreage
      groups, is an example of bureaucratic routine, scientific
      rubbish, a meaningless juggling of figures, for there isnot
      a shadowof any reasonable, rational, theoretical or
      practical ground for accepting such a number of groups as
      typical.

[1][PLACEHOLDER.]